nearly 75,000 new infections in the past day. >> the government needs to do a better job of testing. >> mask mandates in 39 states but not georgia where the governor just banned local municipalities from making them mandatory. >> i was furious. i was absolutely lost for words. >> the situation is dire and the death rate will continue to go up if we don't take more dramatic measures. >> this is "new day" with alisyn camerning. welcome to our viewers around the states. john berman is off, jim sciutto is here. great to have you. it's a very busy day, jim, and we begin with the alarming numbers in the pandemic. shattering the new record for coronavirus cases, with more than 77,000 cases on thursday. that is more than triple from one month ago.

that's when vice president pence said they winning the fight against the coronavirus. the staggering case total is 13 times more than the new cases in the european union. florida, texas and south carolina all reporting record deaths. ten states and puerto rico hitting report hospitalization levels as well. >> the numbers tell a similar story and "the washington post" has obtained a report from the white house task force that suggests 20 hard-hit states need to take action immediately to require face coverings and other steps. arkansas and colorado are the latest to impose mask mandates. georgia's a different story. the governor there is suing atlanta's mayor to stop her city from mandating masks. this as new cases soar in that city, in that state. well, brian kemp he's about to

speak at a news conference. we'll speak with the atlanta mayor in minutes to discussion this ongoing debate. >> joining us right now is cnn chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta. great to have you back. we started in bad shape as a country in terms of cases and hospitalizations and deaths and ending it worse. we're ending it worse. every day the numbers have gone up and sanjay, we talk about it all the time. i know you don't like to be the voice of desperation or doom or anything. but today feels desperate. i mean, what's happening in florida and georgia and elsewhere and texas is bad. >> yeah. it is bad. you know, i like to be the voice of some sort of solution, you know, because i think that's what we still ultimately need. but you're right. i mean, there's no way to sugarcoat what's going on right now. we see those numbers rise and i'm here in georgia. i'm following earnestly what's going to happen throughout the day here today with some of the back and forth between the governor and the mayor.

but as you follow the numbers as they have gone up, we know and the virus have been consistent on this, that the number of hospitalizations are going to go up in a couple of weeks and sadly the number of deaths will go up a few weeks after that. i work in the hospitals here at the emery university system. you know, we went into sort of covid mode for a couple of months essentially where the hospitals essentially are a covid hospital. elective operation were getting delayed. you know, very hard to take care of other patients. there was some light where we were going back to some normalcy of schedule again and now we're hearing that it's going back to a day by day basis. that you know we have to evaluate things in a day by day basis to see if we can continue to take care of patients other than covid patients. so it's very hard to get ahead of this if these are the numbers that we're dealing with. and at some point, you know, the idea of containing this feels more and more like a dream. by the way, what is containment? that means one case per million

a day. that would be 350 cases a day in the country and as you point out we have 77,000. so we're nowhere even close to the idea of containment. we're just trying to slow this down if possible at this point. >> okay. so if we're not even close to containment here and that's an alarming assessment, what does that tell you about the judgment regarding reopening schools because a lot of communities they're getting close to it. they're just a few weeks away as we get into august here. what does the data tell us? >> well, i think the data that kids aren't as likely to get sick was true looking at the early data out of wuhan and has remained true. we can show the data in terms of what it means. the kids can get the virus but far less likely to get hospitalized and die. that's the good news. but the thing we don't know, how

much can kids spread this virus? there's no large studies on this yet. mostly kids have been at home, you know, since mid march. i mean, getting out and about a little bit so it makes it very hard to know this. what we can say to your question is that the countries around the world that have safely opened schools, they were close to containment mode. one out of a million cases per day. again, we're nowhere close to that. if you look at places where they reopened too early, you started to see significant spread again. schools played an impact here. showed this graph from israel for a second. israel was doing a great job. the overall numbers are a lot lower than ours, but may 17th, schools fully reopened. pretty clear that was the controlling factor that led to the significant increase in cases so overall i think you could probably say at this point children -- we don't know exactly how much children spread this but they probably spread it less than adults. if you're living in a place

that's significant spread or spread is going up consistently for the last several days, it's probably not time to reopen schools because you'll just magnify that problems. >> do you have any insight into the white house task force report? the 359 pages where clearly, they have gathered the data on individual states. they have done the work. they have done all of the homework and they have come up with recommendations tailored to each state, but it hasn't been released publicly. we only know about it courtesy of the center for public integrity. do you know if governors are getting this report or is it gathering dust or what's the status? >> you know, i'm not sure exactly how this information was transmitted to governors. when we asked about some of these individual state reports that the coronavirus task force -- i talked to the members of the task force regularly, we are told that they're constantly creating these guidelines. they're updating these guidelines. they're using new evidence and they release them at the time that they think they should be

released. so i don't know what the status was here, if they felt like they weren't ready for full release or not. i can tell you we had dr. tom frieden on the town hall and he tells me on tuesday, his nonprofit organization now outside of government is going to release detailed plans on what all 50 states need to do. my guess is probably borrowing heavily from these guidelines that, you know, never really made it to the public. >> all right. let's talk about some good news here because we are learning more about this. progress being made on vaccines, but another hopeful headline you want to share with us regards immunity. that is that other coronaviruses might give some protection against covid-19. explain what we know. >> yeah. it's good to give a little good news, right? the idea has been for some time and we have been looking into this almost since the beginning,

why do some people, majority of people frankly not develop significant symptoms to the virus or minimal symptoms to the virus. we don't know the answer to this, but what they have been finding now, there's a new paper out of nature, a scientific journal, showing there's a certain large percentage of the country, 20 to 50% of the people, having never been exposed to this new coronavirus still seem to have some reactivity to the virus in the form of what is known as t-cells. these are not antibodies, but some of the memory cells in your body that can help fight an infection. why would you already have some reactivity to a brand-new virus like this that could possibly provide you protection? the answer is, as you point out, that there are other coronaviruses out there. many of them, most of which cause pretty mild things like the common cold. so could exposure to common cold

coronaviruses in the past possibly provide you some protection to the novel coronavirus now? that's a question. still unresolved. i don't want to overstate this, but the fact that 20 to 50% of the population in some of the studies did already have reactivity to this coronavirus, this new coronavirus i think is very encouraging. we have always been asking, why do some people get very sick and others don't seem to get that sick at all, if they show any symptoms? this is something that the scientists will dig into. if it's true, we may have more protection it there circulating than we realized. >> that would be good news, no question. dr. sanjay gupta, so good to have you on as always. >> you got it. thanks. well, joining cnn's jake tapper he will investigate what happened in the fight against the coronavirus and what could happen next. cnn's special report, the pandemic and the president, will air tomorrow night, 10:00 p.m. only on cnn. georgia's governor is suing

atlanta's mayor for taking the step that many scientists recommend of mandating masks to stop the spread of covid-19. why? the state's lieutenant governor and atlanta's mayor will join us live next.

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at a press conference which we are monitoring. joining us conveniently, we have lieutenant governor jeff duncan. thanks for being here. we didn't know that the governor would be having a press conference when we booked you to come on, so can you give us a preview of what he's about to announce when he takes the podium? >> well, good morning, alisyn, great to be with you again and i'm not certain of his comments. we're here at the studio here this morning. >> so meaning it's that sudden, that he has announced a press conference that we didn't know about it and you didn't know about it either? >> well, my job as the lieutenant governor is to look for every opportunity to encourage our folks around the state to be safe. practice social distancing, put on their masks, certainly that's a top priority of ours here and work with local businesses to try to find ways to keep themselves going here in the tough economy. >> so is it possible he'll announce a shutdown or update on the mask battle he's having with

the mayor of atlanta? >> i'm certain we all will watch. i continue to have a good working relationship with her and her staff. >> i know you're in a tough position about masks but you say it's a top priority to get everybody to wear masks. why is governor kemp then suing mayor bottoms about this? >> well, i would point you to the governor and the attorney general in the suit they filed yesterday, you know? it's my job i'm using this platform to really encourage everybody to wear masks. you know, selfishly i'm wearing a mask because i want to be able to go to my kids' graduation in a couple on weeks and watch my middle son play high school football. i want my investments not to struggle through the tough economy. i'm encouraged by the millions of georgians wearing masks and i talked about the trip to the grocery store. i went again last night to get dinner. everybody but one person had a mask on. it was a young employee and i watched the manager walk up to him and tell him to put the mask

on. we continue to watch retailers all over the country mandate masks because they believe it's in the best interest of their customers. >> that's not selfish, lieutenant governor, of you. what is actually considerate of you to wear the mask. the medical community says it's the one thing we can all do to keep deaths down. why is your governor fighting this? >> so, you know, i think it's so important to really look into this. last week we talked about the mandate on masks at the local levels. you know, the challenges that we face -- look, i think everybody would agree with this. it's so hard to enforce masks are you wearing it correctly, not wearing it correctly, are you able to social distance, are we diverting law enforcement's attention to kind of hand out citations and warnings. at the end of my day, my appeal here is for everybody in georgia, everybody in the country, when you leave your home, go put a mask on. let this be a defining moment of this society, of this country to get through this and to be able

to see the backside of this crisis because we're in the middle of the crisis. until we find a vaccine that we can distribute here globally, we're in the middle of a crisis and it's not going away. >> but your governor is suing the atlanta mayor for saying the very same thing. she's saying to keep everybody safe, it's her city. she knows what's happening on the ground in and she's mandating masks and he's suing her because of it. explain the logic. >> look, the masks are so important for us to wear. once again as i mentioned last week, the whole conversation is a distraction to the health and well-being of everybody in our state. i think it's important to take on the big notion of personal responsibility. we can mandate all we want but i think it comes down to personal responsibility. certainly once again i'll point you back to the governor and to the attorney general and to the exact details of their suit. my concern is that we get through this here in georgia. that we try to find the balance between health and economic

well-being of so many communities. this is a tough time for everybody. >> agreed. >> certainly this distraction is not helping us get through this. >> agreed. but we have laws about drunk driving because sometimes people are not personally responsible. are you saying that you disagree with the governor's lawsuit? >> i absolutely see his intentions around the hard -- around the inability to enforce people, you know, are you going to walk up to somebody as a law enforcement officer, you didn't it have over your nose so here's the citation. >> but let's be practical. is that really happening? a mask mandate is saying, please do this, please try your best. is it really happening that you think police in atlanta are harassing people about whether they have their mask over their nose? i mean, practically speaking, what's the harm? in mandating the mask -- >> we don't want that to be the case. so at the end of the day, my

appeal here as georgia's lieutenant governor is to let everybody know how important wearing a mask is to flatten the curve. until we have a vaccine we've have this front and center. we have an opportunity here to do the right thing and i want everybody in georgia to do the right thing. >> do you think it's possible that people in georgia are getting a mixed message between the atlanta mayor, your message, and the governor? >> i hope that -- you know, i hope we move past it. i think the whole conversation about the mandate doesn't help us get through this. it becomes a distraction on the health and well-being of 11 million georgians. here's another part. in the boardroom i never walked around the board room and asked for good ideas and then the next question was are you a democrat or a republican, i simply listen to good ideas. i want us to work together as much as humanly possible here in georgia and as a country to get through this. these are some tough times. there's some tough conversations happening around people's kitchen tables.

around people's boardrooms. there's people's lives at stake here, i want us to put our best foot forward. >> mayor bottoms says she's doing the mask mandate to save lives. do you think she's not telling the truth about that? >> i believe her to be genuine and honest about that. we'll continue to move forward and continue to encourage every single person to wear a mask. i have got my 9-year-old in the studio here and he's got a mask on. it's hard to tell him every single time we walk into the restaurant or walk outside why he has to wear the mask. they may have a healthier, stronger immune system, but they're conduits. i want to focus in on the big issues. >> last, do you think a lawsuit that blocks the mask mandate is helpful? >> look, i think the whole conversation is a difficult one that we're having and i hope that the governor and the mayor work together to get through

this and we flatten the curve and get ourselves back to the productive, strong economy here in georgia and continue to look for opportunities to lead on the big issues. >> lieutenant governor duncan, we really appreciate your time and we'll be watching along with you as to whatever it is that governor kemp is about to announce. thanks so much. what does atlanta's mayor think of all of this and of these messages and the lawsuit? she's going to join us live, next. welcome back, to that samd place that you laughed about well the names have all changed since you hung around but those dreams have remained and they've turned around who'd have thought they'd lead ya back here where we need ya welcome back, america. it sure is good to see you.

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some young people and we have ample examples of that who are young and otherwise healthy can bet seriously ill. i mean seriously ill or can be knocked out on their back and brought to their knees pretty quickly. >> that's dr. anthony fauci there appealing directly to young people not to take the coronavirus lightly in a new interview, this was with the ceo of facebook, mark zuckerberg. dr. fauci and president trump talked for the first time in more than a month this week. imagine that. after attempts by the white

house to publicly discredit fauci. joining us now, dr. margaret ham berg who served as fda commissioner under president obama. and she has been friends and colleagues with dr. fauci for over 30 years. you know him very well. i have had the opportunity to speak with him many times. the white house is deliberately muffling his voice. they're preventing him from come on this network and others. tell us about his frustration i imagine with that. because i know he just wants to get the best information out there. >> well, this is really a tragic situation. here we have, you know, probably the world's most renowned infectious disease specialist who is working night and day to try to help our country and the world solve this devastating global pandemic and he's not being allowed to do what he does best. you know, he can help to advance the science. our understanding of this virus,

how it causes disease and how best to control it. he can help to apply the best scientific evidence to the policies and programs that are needed and he's terrific at communicating to policymakers, to the public, talking with the media and we need all of that desperately now. >> and the polls show that people believe him by far greater percentages, multiples in fact of over president trump. he has decades of experience in responding to exactly health challenges like this one -- pandemics, ebola, hiv, et cetera. we could list it. tell us about the professional view when you have an administration in the midst of a pandemic deliberately undermining the credibility of someone with his role and his background. >> well, it doesn't make any

sense. of course, when you're in the role like dr. fauci is now, you're always walking a bit of a tight rope. you know, we talk about the perilous intersection of public health and politics. he has to navigate carefully. but he has so much to offer, such an important message and the only way that we're going to get out of the terrible situation we're in with, you know, resurgence of disease, rising cases, hospitals being overwhelmed, deaths increasing in so many places now in our country. the only way we'll get out to -- out of this situation is to have people like him helping to lead us through, helping us to bring public health and science to the problems and there is a path forward. it isn't going to be impossible for us to do everything that we want to do to open up and return

to various kinds of activities, but we have to do it in a systemic, thoughtful, data driven way and he knows that and he can help to lead the charge. >> systemic, thoughtful data driven, that is not the way this administration is making decisions and that has been the advice for months now and the president appears to be going in the opposite direction on this. he's talking about showers and bathtubs for some reason and not this virus and still talking the data. can a country given that sad reality with a patch work of responses, some states doing it aggressively, other states, you know, suing a mayor as we see in georgia, opposes the mayor over a mask restriction, can a country with that dispirit response succeed in the pandemic or are we condemned to really a

disastrous here when this plays out? >> well, there's no doubt that we have been hindered by the lack of a national plan, the lack of a whole of government response and engagement of all the expertise and of course working with the private sector as well in a coordinated way. we were slow to get started. we have never really hit our rhythm but it is not too late. but sadly, it may be that we're going to have to continue to cobble together with leadership from all of the 50 states our response. you know, but my hope is that we will be able to learn from our mistakes, that we will be able to apply the best science, and we will be able to have people like tony fauci and others in our country understand science and how to harness it for the

good of society, that we will be able to do better. we must do better and i do think we can. >> let's hope so. i appreciate your expertise, margaret hamberg and also your hope as well. >> thank you. well, georgia's governor is speaking right now at a press conference. this after we just mentioned suing atlanta's mayor over taking a step of mandating masks, something that the scientists shows helps to hem in the outbreak. keisha lance bottoms, she's going to join us live next. ng to scout them out no matter how far away. kevin! anything to report? (kevin) nothing. (brad) that's interesting. exactly like the last nine hundred eighty-three days. (kevin) hey, can i come home? (brad) kevin, kevin, kevin. what a dedicated intern. he's just one of the reasons why more people find their place on apartments-dot-com than any other website. (employee) sir, we have an incoming call. (brad) send it to voicemail. (employee) done. (brad) apartments-dot-com. the most popular place to find a place.

i know that many well intentioned and well informed people want a mask mandate and while wearing a mask is effective, i'm confident that georgians don't need a mandate to do the right thing. >> that was governor brian kemp talking about why he's fighting mask mandates. atlanta mayor keisha lance bottoms is fighting back after

they were stopped to mandate that face masks be worn in public. georgia is experiencing a big surge in coronavirus cases. joining us now is keisha lance bottoms. mayor, the governor had this impromptu press conference and he said that georgians don't need a mandate to the right thing. your response? >> this is all very bizarre, quite frankly. the city of savannah enacted a mask mandate july 1st. his hometown of athens, georgia, enacted a mask mandate on july 8th. then the city of atlanta followed and i don't think it was happenstance that this lawsuit was filed the day after donald trump visited atlanta and i pointed out that he did not have on a mask in atlanta's hartsfield-jackson airport and that was in violation of state law. i see the governor putting

politics over people. we all know the cdc is in our backyard and the cdc says that wearing a mask will help stop the spread of this virus. overwhelmingly people in atlanta support a mask mandate so it's a waste of taxpayer money and we are spending time fighting each other when this virus doesn't understand politics and it doesn't respect the state or the city. it's impacting us all and i'm personally impacted as i sit here a covid-19 positive and in quarantine. >> so you're saying that the governor did not take the same action, he did not sue savannah or athens, but only you and your city council so you think it's personal retaliation? >> i do believe it's personal retaliation, and he sued us personally. he did not sue the city of atlanta. he filed suit against myself and our city council personally.

this was one day after the president's visit to our city and, again, it is a complete waste of time and money to file suit against the capital city of the state in which he's supposed to lead. it is -- as we are struggling with testing, we don't have proper contact tracing. to me, it took my eight days to get my test results back. when i was tested one person in my house was asymptomatic and positive. by the time i got the results back, my husband and i, we were positive. that's a better use of our money, not on silly lawsuits. >> i have just been told that he just brought you up specifically. i have not heard it yet. i know you haven't. so let's listen to what governor kemp did said. >> mayor bottoms' mask mandate cannot be enforced but undermining the economic growth is devastating.

atlanta businesses are hurting. violent crime is up. and families are rightfully worried. just like sending in the national guard to protect those living in our capital city from crime and violence, i refuse to sit back and watch as disastrous policies threaten the lives and livelihoods of our citizens. >> mayor, your response? >> propaganda. it is completely inaccurate. the city of atlanta convened an advisory committee to issue voluntary recognitions for how we'd move forward as it relates to the virus. these are voluntary advisory recommendations by the metrics and the data and the science of those guidelines that require we go back to phase one of the reopening plan. that was not a subjective decision. and again, voluntary guidance

for businesses. so for him to say that we are closing businesses in the city of atlanta and costing people money is a blatant lie. these are voluntary recommendations. we have not closed any businesses and it's unfortunate in the midst of this pandemic that the governor of our state who didn't know that the virus could be spread by asymptomatic means is continuing to spread misinformation. >> as you point out he is suing you personally and you believe it's political retribution because when president trump landed in atlanta you told him that by not wearing a mask he was violating city law. what did president trump say to you at that point? >> well, i have not heard personally from the white house, but i do know that brian kemp does the bidding of president trump. and it is -- it's unfortunate because meanwhile, over 130,000

people in our state have tested positive for covid-19, over -- have lost their lives and instead of speaking on the same accord about how we can stop the spread of this virus, this governor is taking taxpayer money to sue me personally and the irony is that i am now infected with covid-19 and he's suing the atlanta city council and the city by and large supports a mask mandate. so it is all very strange and we'll just add this to the list of strange things that are happening in 2020. but meanwhile, people are dying in our state. and this is how we're spending money? he spent over $20 million to expand hospital beds in our state. only to take the hospital beds down and now he has to put them back up again because he was

reckless in reopening our state and our hospitals are almost at capacity. and this is how he chooses to spend our time and taxpayer money. >> we just had the lieutenant governor on our air. i don't know if you heard the interview, but basically he said over and over how much he encourages all georgians to wear masks. he feels very strongly that they should wear masks. and yet, he doesn't believe in a mask mandate. one of his rationales was that it would be too challenging for police to enforce. what do you think about that logic? >> well, it's very interesting because these are the same people who often speak of the need for local control in government. and so the atlanta police department reports to me as mayor. the same with the city of savannah and any number of other cities across our state. and so as leaders, we are

empowered to make decisions on behalf of the people who live in our respective cities. and let us figure out how we endorse this mandate. we don't need guidance from the governor as to how our police respond to mask mandates. he is going against the will of the people of georgia. going against the mayors of some of the largest cities in the state and it is -- it is unbelievable that we are dealing with this when people are continuing to die and be infected at record numbers in our state. >> because you're in touch with the police force all the time, are they having a hard time? is it too onerous for them to enforce a mask mandate? are they running around after people having to give tickets, et cetera? >> absolutely not. the governor has had not had a discussion with me.

no one's had a discussion about whether or not our police department is overburdened with this mask mandate. my police chief has not even elevated that as a concern. and again, it is -- it is inexplicable that the city of atlanta will now have to defend a lawsuit based upon voluntary business recommendations and these recommendations were put together by a group of business leaders and small business owners and health care professionals in our city and for the governor to sue us on the mask mandate when the cdc has told us that it helps save lives, really speaks to the lack of leadership. >> how is your family doing? you just brought up that you had tested positive. we talked to you right after that happened. i know your husband was ill. how is everybody today? >> thankfully, my husband is

doing so much better and as i see the stories and see so many people losing the battle, people like my husband who are in great health, i'm very grateful that he's doing better. i'm doing better. and my child who tested positive as well, we're all doing much better. thank you for asking. >> we're really happy to hear that. what -- as we speak, governor kemp is still speaking. i think he's taking some questions. what do you want to say to him before you see him in court? >> follow the science. the cdc is a part of the city of atlanta. emery university who has some of the leading infectious disease experts in the country, dr. carlos del rio was a part of our advisory committee. follow the science. i'm not making this up. i had no desire for the city of atlanta to recommend that we go back to phase one, but the data and metrics call upon us to do that. this is -- we are creating

issues that shouldn't have to be in the middle of fighting a pandemic. and it is a waste of money. i'd much rather see that money go towards helping our health care professionals and go towards making people have the care they need. rather than us spending time and energy in court. >> what you are doing in atlanta seems to comport with what the white house task force itself is recommending. we got our hands on 359-page task force report that has not been made public. but the center for public integrity, a watchdog group was able to get it. here's what it says for georgia, mandate statewide use of masks in all counties with positivity greater than 10%, close the bars. require strict social distancing at restaurants. close gyms. limit gatherings to ten people

or fewer. allow local jurisdictions to implement more restrictive policies. this is the white house's own task force that is suggesting you do the very steps that you have taken and yet, this hadn't been made public. had you heard from them, the white house task force? >> i had not heard from them, but again, the people i'm listening to are the scientists and the health care professionals. our health care professionals who are telling us that the hospitals are beyond capacity. that they are getting overwhelmed and you have to remember at the beginning of this pandemic back in the first part of the year, people were staying at home. we didn't have as many people out having car accidents and all of these things that send people into our emergency rooms. so when georgia opened back up, cell phone data was very clear

that people flocked to our state because we were opened up for business as usual. so now on top of the everyday things that send people into our trauma centers, we now have people also going in with covid-19. and it is -- it is beyond my comprehension that we can't follow the science on this. this is not a political stance. this is about the lives of people. and the people in my city are dying. the people in our state are dying and perhaps the governor doesn't know anyone who's lost a loved one to covid-19. i do. i talked with a widow yesterday. one of the city employees who lost her husband to covid-19. perhaps he's not had to make those telephone calls as i have had to make. i would hope that if he has done that, and that he would have a different perspective on this disease and what it's doing to our communities and he would

better understand why mayors across this state are asking and mandating that masks be worn. >> mayor keisha lance bottoms, thank you for your time today. we're obviously watching what happens in georgia. >> thank you. cnn's chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta is here with us. you were hearing this and notable and the mayor makes the point that the governor is suing her personally. right? but set the politics aside as a doctor here, you know, the -- how a mask mandate helps control the outbreak. let's talk about what works. let's forget the politics. in other countries who have gotten a handle on this unlike the u.s. have mask mandates made a difference in saving lives? >> 100%, no question at all. we see that in terms of looking at large populations of people. in the other places, they don't have some magic pill that we

don't have here in the united states. they wore masks, they have been doing it and it's made a huge difference. there's now scientific evidence in how much of a difference, it can decrease transmission five to six fold with the masks in terms of actually decreasing the likelihood of the virus spreading from somebody. jim, you say put aside the politics for a second, frankly, what we are seeing unfold here is a purely political story. just to be clear, the idea that the governor is saying well, extend the emergency declaration, but not put a mask mandate in place which is recommended directly to him by the coronavirus task force. we know that's the case. the evidence is very clear and we know what is happening here in georgia. again, which nobody wants to shut down the state again, aren't doing the things to prevent that from happening and masks are a major part of that. i mean, that's just -- that's

just the truth. scientifically, politically, how ever you want to frame it, that's just the truth. >> sanjay, it's just so crazy. sometimes i have to step back and look at the conversation that we're having. it's the easiest thing in the world. putting on a mask is just the easiest thing in the world. is it a minor inconvenience, yeah, okay. but as we have pointed out, so is wearing a ventilator, so is going to the hospital, so is getting somebody you know sick. it's just -- the idea that this has become a heated political football where the governors have -- they're suing somebody and having press conferences and all this, it's astonishing. >> it's totally ridiculous and it is going to be one of the worst legacies of this entire thing. i mean, mayor bottoms said it's politics over people. it's 100% politics over people. the president came here to atlanta, was not wearing a mask when he came despite the fact there was an ordinance in place.

the governor instead of responding to that in some way said, hey, look, i'm going to now sue the mayor of atlanta for having put this ordinance in place. i mean, there is just one person that our governor sadly is trying to appeal to here and it's really disturbing. my work in the hospital system here as i mentioned last hour, we are going to run into the situation again now in our hospital system where we may not be able to take care of the patients who need care outside of -- aside from covid patients. because there's going to be such a demand on the hospital system. that they're going to turn into covid hospitals again, primarily. so it's really ridiculous and the idea that again something as simple as a mask, something that's worked in other countries around the world we're not making this up. this has worked in other countries around the world. there's scientific evidence. go inform yourself about this and recognize the difference it can make. everybody wants to get out of this mess. we want to open up schools, open up businesses. the more that we do now in terms

of things like masks and testing as well, but masks is the discussion topic right now. the further we'll go along in terms of achieving these objectives. >> sanjay, thank you. thank you very much. we really appreciate all of the information every morning. okay, it has been almost two months since george floyd's killing sparked these worldwide protests against deadly police encounters. our next guest has a unique look on where things stand with institutional racism in america. he shares the lesson he learned as a child that stuck with him today. watch this. >> i was very conscious about that and i remember when you were a little guy, you know, 6, 7 years old, and there was a drugstore near us that we would shop at. as soon as we walked in the door, the store detective would follow us. i said, be really careful and i pointed out the store detective because we're always being

watched. >> i remember that lesson and it sticks with me today. so much so that i'm aware of when i'm in stores even as a fully grown adult where my hands are. and then, you know, as a kid i was aware because i didn't want to be arrested. then now as an adult i worry because i don't want to be killed. >> yeah. >> joining us now is the host and executive producer of cnn's "united shades of america" w. kamau bell. good to see you. >> i wish to be there. >> i look forward to the day we can see you in person. tell us about what -- i mean, it's a perfect time for your show because you have long been looking at all of these issues of racism and systemic racism and white supremacy so where are you now? >> i think this in many ways is a sequel to when i met with the kkk and before the civil unrest

we should look again at white supremacy but take a much deeper look and really get more instructive about what the white supremacy is. a lot of times we get caught up in white supremacists, the neo-nazis and the kkk, but we want to talk about the structure and the system of white supremacy. which means the majority of presidents have been white men. >> kamau, we have talked about how racism -- it's not just about the folks in the white suits, right? that you have it just below the surface or not even that far below the surface. i want to play some comments from president trump yesterday regarding the fair housing act, because this struck me as one of those not dog whistle moments but bullhorn moments. have a listen and i want to get your thoughts. >> abolish in the suburbs -- you're going to abolish the suburbs with this. they want low income built in

the housing, i'm taking that out. >> what exactly is he saying to suburban residents in your view? >> i mean, as i understand it, the suburbs are created for white flight. created when the cities got too black and brown and the suburbs were built for those people. so when he says abolish the suburbs even though lots of black and brown people live in the suburbs, he is dog whistling that they're coming for your white picket fence in a house you can't afford because your mortgage is under water. >> when you're looking at what every american needs to know about white supremacy where do you begin with something like that? >> i mean, i think -- with the show we understand that we have to actually define the terms for the viewer in ways we'll use them through the episode and very early we define as jim will

affirm to you, what white supremacy and how they see it. it's a system that promotes whiteness over everyone else. so we want to talk about like it's -- it's block busting, red lining. but it's just people who feel like they have no response for racism in this country because they never personally owned slaves. so we go through -- not the entire thing but multiple levels of white supremacy. it's not just a feeling, but actually a measurable force in america. >> as you look at this, i wonder, kain your conversations and watching the news, when you see public attitudes toward racism change and a greater public recognition, right? the vast majorities of americans see it now, and black lives

matter was a fringe motto of a movement and now it has the majority of americans who believe there is something there. in doing this, did you find the conversation changing in this country in a positive direction? >> i mean, you know, i live out here in oakland in the bay area where lisa garza, one of the founders of black lives matter lives, and it never felt fringe, it felt basically like are peopling are coming to oakland. the black panthers from oakland are more mainstream but none of it matters if we don't get to the systems and the structures in this country. i think if we stop protesting, if we stop the conversation, what we need is systemic and structural change because it's about mass incarceration. it's right now the president ordering the kids back to schools and the black and brown kids who systematically have the worst education in schools so being sent back to schools will affect them more than others. so i think we have to talk about

systems in the same way that the squad came through to change congress, we need lots more versions of that, of much more people representing different groups of people. >> kamau, great to see your mom. great to see you talking to your mom janet there. you know, i mean, since george floyd's death, you know, i think all of our eyes have been more opened and we have become more attuned to the struggle that moms like yours have had with their black sons of even going into the department store. i knew that moms always had to warn their black sons about getting pulled over, if you do, be extremely respectful. but the drugstore moment was about how you have to be at a heightened state of heightened awareness going in. >> yeah, at the age of 6, the time that, you know, you might walk in there by yourself -- i'd walk in by myself to buy a magazine or candy, and literally what she said is don't touch anything unless you plan to buy it. that's a lot to put on a little

kid when you just want to go out there and enjoy yourselves. so yeah, it starts at the very beginning. >> well, thank you, kamau. and to all of you, be sure to watch the all new season of "united shades of america" 10:00 p.m. eastern time only on cnn. "cnn newsroom" with poppy harlow begins right now. all right. it is friday morning. good morning, everyone. i'm poppy harlow. glad you're with us. this morning, the states scrambling to get a hold of the virus surging across the nation. for the ninth time in the month, the u.s. has set a new record in new cases. more than 77,000 new cases over the last 24 hours. and more than 940 people dying from this virus yesterday alone. 38 states are seeing a rise in new cases and the debate over masks is getting more political and it's intensifying as some cies